RICHLAND - A young, determined, Moses Lake Chiefs softball team put itself in position to play for a regional tournament berth on Saturday and fell short in the process.

The Chiefs dropped a 9-0 decision to Richland and then lost 9-4 to Wenatchee to be eliminated from the Big 9 district tournament and see their season come to an end.

"The kids played hard all day and I'm real proud of every one of them," Moses Lake head coach Dave Gregory said. "Considering three out of the four teams there were in the top ten in the state. Walla Walla who won the tournament ranked number two in the state. Richland who took second ranked number four and Wenatchee is ranked six."

Cassandra Guerrero went 2-for-3 against Richland as was Alex Jones and Holly Perry which accounted for all of the Moses Lake (13-10) hits against the Bombers, who led only 2-0 after four innings before a big fifth frame.

In their loss to Wenatchee, the Chiefs battled to a 0-0 tie after three innings and took the lead first in the fourth.

Tasha Gentry homered and then one batter later Jones did the same for a 2-0 Chiefs lead.

They held that advantage until the bottom of the fifth inning where Wenatchee took advantage of three Chiefs errors and five hits of their own to take a 5-2 lead. The Panthers added four more runs in the next inning and they would cruise from there.

"It was a hard loss for us since we felt we had a really good chance of beating Wenatchee," Gregory said.